>>>"Classic" Tankery, played under the original pre-Contact rules,
>>>permits only the use of AFVs designed and built on Earth before the
>>>surrender of Nazi Germany to end the European phase of that planet's
>>>Second World War, May 8, 1945. Some extremely strict forms of
>>>sensha-dō take that restriction even further and require that
>>>teams limit themselves only to equipment that would logically have
>>>been operated by one combatant force in that war (e.g., all Soviet
>>>equipment, all German, or mixed UK and US hardware), but that rule is
>>>considered archaic and optional even under the modern Co-Prosperity
>>>Sphere Ministry for Sport regulations.
>>
>>Given the combatants mentioned here -- and the cutoff date -- I take
>>it not even the Co-Prosperity Sphere's Tankers think that their
>>WW2-era's namesake's tanks are worth bothering with?
>
>Well, the list is not meant to be comprehensive, but in general, no.
>Not many survivors from the Pacific theater in any event. They didn't
>hold up so well. Humidity, you know.

... would that matter? The plans would still be available. You could get a lot of mileage out of surprising the enemy team with something that has a performance profile they're unfamiliar with even if the actual tank is mediocre.

Although I will note that I'm parsing "designed and built" as "you must use a tank design that was built prior to May 8th, 1945" rather than "you must use an actual hull that rolled off the assembly line prior to that date."

Because, I mean, the latter would basically ensure that that form of the sport eventually died out. Tanks wear out. They wear out fast. Especially once from that era. Treads alone probably need to be replaced after every single match, so that's already one major component you'd have to very quickly switch to using modern repros of. Eventually you'd have people rolling around in hulls in which every single major component (including, er, the hull) had been replaced with something machined well after 1945.

Would make more sense if everyone were using modern repros rather than actually things that were busting down hedgerows in the bocage.

-Merc
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